Elizabeth Leyburne, Duchess of Norfolk (1536 – 4 September 1567), was a member of the English aristocracy. She first married Thomas Dacre, 4th Baron Dacre; following his death in 1566, she secretly married Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk.[1] She was his third wife.
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Elizabeth was born in 1536, the daughter of Sir James Leyburne of Cunswick, Westmorland and Helen Preston. The latter was the child of Thomas Preston and Anne Thornburgh. She had one sister, Anne, who married William Stanley, 3rd Baron Monteagle, by whom she had a daughter, Elizabeth.
The members of the Leyburne (also written as Leybourne) family were recusants.
She married her first husband, Thomas Dacre, 4th Baron Dacre of Gilsland in 1555. The marriage produced five children:
There was disagreement between Elizabeth and the Dacres as to her husband's will, which settled his lands on his son and brothers, limiting their inheritance to heirs male. Elizabeth allegedly felt aggrieved on behalf of her daughters, but according to her brother-in-law Leonard Dacre, Elizabeth herself received more ‘than ever anye the wyves of the auncestors of the said Lorde Dacre had.’[3] When her husband died on 25 July 1566[4], Elizabeth wasted no time in finding another. Six months later on 29 January 1567, she secretly married Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, a man who had already been married twice. The marriage ceremony was conducted in secrecy in the London home of her mother.[5]
On 4 September 1567, just over seven months after her marriage, Elizabeth died in childbirth at Kenninghall, Norfolk [1]; the baby, whose sex is not known, died as well. The Duke was granted wardship of her children two months after her death. He later arranged the marriages of her three daughters to his own sons by his former wives.[6] Elizabeth's son, George, who had succeeded his father as 5th Baron Dacre, died at the age of nine in 1569. In that same year, Norfolk was imprisoned on the orders of Queen Elizabeth I for having plotted to marry Mary, Queen of Scots.